From the lens of OOH: Brand safety, suitability, and compliance

Conversations around brand safety, suitability, and compliance are inescapable in digital advertising. Take a closer look at all three in the context of OOH.

As fears of misinformation swirl in an unprecedented global election year, ad fraud continues to grow, and experimentation with artificial intelligence (AI) raises eyebrows across the ad industry, conversations around brand safety are unavoidable. 

Advertisers and media buyers are now, more than ever, hyper-aware of the impact a consumer’s perception of a brand can have on purchase decisions, as well as brand consideration and loyalty. According to Integral Ad Science research, 75% of consumers feel less favorable toward brands that advertise on sites that spread misinformation, while 51% cited an increased likelihood of abandoning a brand and its product/service if its ads appear near inappropriate content.

Brand suitability and compliance, however, often get overlooked or conflated with brand safety across conversations on the subject matter. Yet, all three are crucial ad campaign planning considerations, especially in a medium like out of home (OOH). Meaningful dialogue starts with understanding what unsafe, unsuitable, and noncompliant ads look like in OOH. From there, it becomes easier to work with ad tech providers to ensure you have the proper safeguards in place for your OOH ads. 
 
Let’s take a closer look at brand safety, suitability and compliance in the context of OOH.

Examining brand safety

At its core, brand safety is all about avoiding ad placements that could jeopardize how your audience perceives your brand. Not only is the actual placement location a consideration but also whether or not it might appear in close proximity to or before/after an unfavorable ad. Unsafe OOH ads may contain offensive, explicit, inappropriate, or false messaging or imagery, such as coded extremist language or visuals that may be difficult for the human eye to catch.

OOH creative and messaging can also take a wrong turn from its original intention, as we saw with a dating app’s recent anti-celibacy campaign, which went viral (in a negative way) this spring. It caused so much backlash that the company responded by donating to organizations combating domestic violence, an action that also received criticism. Then, there are fake OOH ads, which can lead to distrust in the medium when audiences realize the ad tricked them.

Brand suitability in context

Brand suitability ensures ad creative doesn’t deviate from “a brand’s values, voice, or audience,” as eMarketer describes it, or appear next to or before/or after content that does. 

Earlier this year, Apple made a brand suitability faux pas when it pushed out its “Crush ad,” which its creative user base perceived negatively. While not an OOH ad, it easily could have been, making it a relevant example. The brand released the ad, in which one of its devices crushes creative instruments, at a time when the creative industry expressed serious concerns around the potential for AI technology to take away jobs. While this was not the brand’s intention, the creative came off that way to the audience, in direct opposition to the brand’s historical values.

A more generic OOH-specific example might be a cannabis, betting and gaming, or alcohol ad that runs at a bus stop in close proximity to an area where there is a large concentration of children. Another instance might be running a billboard ad next to, before, or after a political OOH ad for a candidate, whose platform doesn’t align with the brand’s values. An OOH ad that appears next to or in close succession to a competitor’s ad also falls into this camp. Competitive separation is paramount.

Brand compliance at a glance

There are many rules across advertising channels, and breaking one of them can prove a costly mistake. Brands and agencies placing OOH ads must account for a host of regulations that vary based upon the region where they’ll run and the venue’s location, as these factors may impact when and where OOH creative can appear. Failure to do so could result in wasted time and spend.

In certain transit areas with ample OOH inventory, ads that feature alcohol or other substances may also be off the table, or require “drink responsibly” disclaimers. Furthermore, advertisers can encounter political advertising stipulations, such as disclosing sponsors or adhering to geographical restrictions. 

In many parts of the world, political OOH ads cannot run within a certain distance of a polling location for a set period before, during, or after a major election day. Globally, restrictions also exist as to how far away ads promoting goods and services to adults must be from schools or places of worship.

Marching toward a safer, more suitable, and compliant future for brands in OOH

Cognizant of the safety, suitability, and compliance challenges facing advertisers today, OOH and omnichannel ad tech providers are working furiously behind the scenes to release new tools and inventory filters to help brands make more informed planning decisions. The solutions they’re bringing to market are designed to help protect a brand’s reputation, ensure OOH placements align with their core values, and rule out OOH inventory that isn’t a fit due to regulations.

Advertisers willing to dive in and explore the tools available to them today stand to benefit, but also have a unique opportunity to influence the future development of these technologies. To this end, now is the time to evaluate your available options and talk to your OOH or omnichannel technology provider about what’s possible now, and where you’d like to see these tools head in the future.